I'm tempted to agree with this line of thought. Romney has never been a real front runner in 2008 the Republican primary electorate kept passing him up for someone different, McCain then Giuliani then Fred Thompson then Mike Huckabee. In short Romney's time at the top of the presidential polls was destined to be short lived. Romney's best hope now is to be the anti-Perry.
Appearing on MSNBC's "Hardball," Jennifer Donahue, a public policy fellow at the Eisenhower Institute and former political director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College, called Mitt Romney a "beleaguered front-runner" and said that the GOP presidential race is now Rick Perry's to lose.
"He can match Romney dollar for dollar no matter how much money Romney spends," she said. "It is over for Mitt Romney."